Review: Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning Part One

Mission: Impossible
Dead Reckoning, Part One
Cert: 12A / 163 mins / Dir. Christopher McQuarrie / Trailer

Things have finally heated up inside the cinema as well as out and the war is truly on for Summer box-office dominance, as the major studios triumphantly present their long-planned showcases for audiences who stopped going to the pictures in 2019. You love to see it. Paramount's saviour is, once again, Tom Cruise - perhaps the last of the great bankable movie stars who manage to get bums on seats purely by being themselves again in a slightly different hat. Anyway, there's a new Mission: Impossible flick out...

This penultimate instalment sees Ethan Hunt and his ragtag IMF team trying to prevent various world- and criminal-powers getting their hands on 'The Entity', a lengthily described yet sketchily defined self-learning, fake-news generating Artificial Intelligence, which could either destroy humanity or just convincingly swap-out the faces of everyone on ITV (whichever is the most inconvenient), activated by a two-part interlocking key*¹ that's been stolen from a Russian nuclear submarine. As McGuffins go, this one is nailed so firmly onto the zeitgeist that it's actually kinda quaint...

NOTED

Before we get into specifics, it should be noted that Dead Reckoning is incredibly solid. It's just never more than a Mission: Impossible movie. And while it's certainly arguable that it doesn't need to be, the whole thing plays out with breathless adrenaline and surgical flair, yet no real emotion at all. There's never the sense that this is leading to anything bigger than in previous entries (no matter how much Lorne Balfe's score swells), and for a screenplay which spends so much time harping on about its past, you'd be forgiven for expecting it to mean more, somehow...

There are slightly too many characters for the (admirable) simplicity of the story, each set-piece is slightly too long, and every rubber-unmasking is unintentionally funnier than the last.

Simon Pegg gets the lion's share of the comedic quips (delivering them perfectly, it has to be said) and a high-speed chase across the Italian cobbles in a yellow Fiat 500 brings some much needed silliness to the mood, but overall Christopher McQuarrie has gone for brooding intensity over fun. Again, whether levity should even be necessary is a debate for more scholarly viewers, but Dead Reckoning is far more slick in the moments when it's got a grin on its face.

GOODYEAR

Cinematographer Fraser Taggart puts in solid work all round with framing, composition and deftly following the action, plus capturing the immersive yet distinct colour palettes of the many locales. Unfortunately his work is slightly undone when it comes to the melee scenes (of which there are many), where Eddie Hamilton's editing fast-cuts between angles so quickly that the whole thing loses coherence rather than adding excitement. And because these physical sequences are often used to move the story along, the script then requires regular industrial-sized injections of exposition from Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, as they sit in front of generic nonsensical laptop displays and explain to other characters where we're all at and what's happening next.

The choreography and stunt work itself is - it should go without saying - beautifully executed of course, huge in its scope and minute in its detail. At this point in 2023 however, the thought occurs that since Fast X has already shown us pseudo-family-bonding and destructive car chases, Mr John Wick has brawled and shot his way through half of Europe and Indiana Jones has had a prolonged train-top fight for a powerful golden artifact on a steam engine which is hurtling towards a bombed viaduct... well, what is Ethan Hunt bringing to the party exactly, except for all-of-those-again?*²

ANCALENDAR

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning is great on a technical level, but unambitious on a narrative one. There's plenty in there to come to the cinema for, and yet little take away. Since the audience only trusts four characters at the start of the movie (and that only really raises to five), there's little jeopardy in tantalising that others 'might be a bit shady'. They're all a bit shady mate, that's why we're here. But Esai Morales going full Bond-villain as the marvellously camp Gabriel lifts that end of things considerably.

Decent, but the series has been better than this*³, so next year's finale has its work cut out.

Oh, and I'm taking points off for McQuarrie chickening out of a potentially brilliant and literal-cliffhanger ending, instead resorting to a damp squib of a decompression coda accompanied by another two minutes of expository voiceover...

*¹ SPOILERS, highlight-to-read: Apparently the powers-that-be are desperate to get their hands on both halves of this key, even though they're shown in the first act as having an exquisitely detailed 3D model of it, so they could just print that and then cast their own copies. There's something about some red and white 'dragons egg' jewels in the key's handle which light up when it's assembled, probably acting as a verification system, but this isn't explained in any practical sense either. We see two guys using it at the start of the movie and they literally insert the key into a lock and manually turn it. Lads, Timpsons are open until 6, they can run one of those out for you...
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*² Look, I know it's not Bruce Geller's, Erik Jendresen's or Christopher McQuarrie's fault that the action sequences of Dead Reckoning have been undercut by its own release-date but seriously: we've already seen most of this, and in films which weren't afraid to also make us laugh. I mean if they'd had Ethan Hunt punching a giant prehistoric shark at the end, at least he'd have got his foot in the door before Jason Statham...
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*³ The first two Mission: Impossible films are the best ones and for wildly different yet complementary reasons thank you I will not be taking questions at this time.
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DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Mission Impossible Fallout

Mission Impossible: Fallout (2D / SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 147 mins / Dir. Christopher McQuarrie / Trailer



Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to assess whether Henry Cavill's non-plot-specific facial hair as a new supporting character in the sixth film of an ongoing franchise was really worth making a laughing-stock of history's most iconic superhero*¹. Oh, you didn't think I'd forget, did you Paramount? Hahaha mate, nobody's forgotten…

Anyway, that's all water under the Parisian catacombs now as Tom Cruise's more 'sensible' action-vehicle, Mission: Impossible, roars back into our cinemas for another globe-trotting installment. Old faces return and new ones are thrown into the mix as the stakes are raised and Ethan Hunt has to save the world from twin-nuclear armageddon*² at the hands of a crazed messianic terrorist.

And as jaded/cynical as I've become with the M:I franchise, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a good time with Fallout. On both writing and directing duties, Christopher McQuarrie wears his cinematic heart on his sleeve with nods to other classic movies*³, as well as tying in details from the previous Missions: Impossibles. Despite a massive reference to the first*⁴ movie in the series (presumably a character-downpayment on future episodes), this is a recipe for an action-cake with espionage-icing, rather than the other way around. Although to be fair, that's been the case since John Woo's sequel in 2000, anyway.

Mission Impossible: Fallout is the kind of film where every twist, turn and sleight-of-hand are telegraphed at least five minutes in advance. The kind of film where spies who furtively meet in Paris are required to do so at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. The kind of film where firearms (small and massive alike) have absolutely no recoil, and high speed vehicle crashes are walked away from with a limp which disappears by the next scene. The kind of film where not only is there a ticking-countdown timer ending, but Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames literally mansplain this to their fellow secret-agent, Rebecca Ferguson. The kind of film where, five minutes later, Pegg explains it again. The kind of film where, two minutes later, Rhames feels the need to vocalise to everyone around him that the countdown has now begun (while we're looking at the timer every third shot). The kind of film where the timer becomes a heavy handed metaphor for the entire screenplay.

But it's still fun. Great fun.

Although they're bringing little new to either the series or their own CVs, the cast are on reliably solid form here. They're who you expect them to be, and they're good at that, at least. Cinematographer Rob Hardy ensures Fallout is beautifully shot, although it's arguably far too glossy for its own good. The recurring lensflare and absolute lack of grit serves to remind the audience that they're on a very expensive and ultimately safe ride. Elsewhere, Lorne Balfe's powerful score drops in just the right amount of the classic signature tune, and keeps the action rolling forward.

And Paramount have done that thing where they make a sixth Mission: Impossible movie, and in this one they even have Ethan Hunt mention the UK's foreign intelligence service MI-6, and yet they don't just call it 'MI:6 Fallout'. I'm old enough to remember the Mission: Impossible II cinema foyer-stands which branded it 'MI-2000' (although I never saw this on anything else*⁵). Perhaps Ian Paramount thinks he had his fingers burnt with that one..?

Let's be honest here, the last three Mission: Impossible films.



For sheer, bloody-minded entertainment value alone, yes it is.



As much as I enjoyed Fallout, I think it'll lose a lot on the journey to the small screen.



It's not even the best Mission: Impossible movie.

That said, I do seem to keep going into these not expecting very much, then thoroughly enjoying the flick, then apparently forgetting how much I enjoyed it by the time the next one comes out.

And credit where it's due, Henry Cavill is far, far better here than in that other 60s TV throwback.



Given the glowing buzz I'm currently hearing and my own reservations, that's a possibility.



There isn't.



Level 1: Cartoon Dengar is in this.





*¹ And feel free to discuss among yourselves of course, but the answer is no. No, it wasn't worth that. In fact, while the style itself is the bane of makeup technicians and continuity advisers the world over, Cavill's facial-stubble changes length and density throughout Fallout anyway, often during single scenes. So now two characters look inherently ridiculous because of one moustache. Well played, Paramount… ^{[ BACK ]}

*² "Hey Chris, that idea you had about the nuclear bomb at the end of the film? I watched that American Assassin at the weekend and they had one of them in that."
"…well Terry, we'll fucking well have TWO nuclear bombs then, won't we? Haha! TWO! HAHAHAHA!"
"But you've written in two timed-bombs within about 100 feet of each other. Surely the first one will just set of the second anyway? And why not just make one big one which would have the same effect?
"…fuck off, Terry." ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Although I'm fully aware that this could just be how my brain works, Fallout opens with a dream-sequence which dares the audience not to think of Sarah Connor's nightmare in Terminator 2. We then move onto what is basically Ozymandias' scheme from the movie-version of Watchmen, facilitated by the stolen plutonium cat-and-mouse from Back To The Future. And if not for the short release-date differential, I'd swear that Ethan grinding the truck to a halt between two walls was a quick nod to the Corellia-chase in Solo. Hell, at one point Ethan's lying in a bed at a medical centre as he looks weakly up at Ilsa and pleads "No, I'm sorry…", and I thought Chris McQuarrie was going to bring us a tension-breaking homage to Shaun of the Dead… ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ best ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁵ Seriously though, do I have False Memory Syndrome on this one? I swear to god that the promo-displays in Dreamland Cinema in Margate said "MI-2000", because the Millennium was still a bandwagon thing even six months into the year. And now I can't seem to find any online record of this happening. Did I make this up because I have some sort of pathological need for tacky marketing campaigns which date incredibly badly? ^{[ BACK ]}


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Father Figures

Father Figures
Cert: 15 / 113 mins / Dir. Lawrence Sher / Trailer



Well, you know you've had a challenging day at the flicks when you're pinning your hopes of a smile on a Warner Bros comedy about an absentee sperm-donor...

Twin brothers Peter and Kyle Reynolds (Ed Helms and Owen Wilson, and before you ask - no, their completely differing looks aren't the punchline for a single joke in here. Twins don't have to be identical of course, but it's almost as if one of them was second-choice casting after the script had been completed). I'll start again...

Twin brothers Peter and Kyle Reynolds are both nominally successful in their chosen fields as a proctologist and the branding-face of a barbecue sauce respectively, but both have a midlife crisis on the horizon. This is accelerated when their mother Helen (Glenn Close) lets slip that their estranged father isn't the man she always said he was. Now, the two have to overcome their superficial differences to venture on a cross-country road trip and track down their real, biological dad. Hilarity ensues. Or at least I imagine those were the final two words of the pitch that secured funding for this to be made.

My laundry-list of complaints with Father Figures is lengthy, broad and simultaneously petty, but I'll try to keep this brief. First and foremost, it's actually amazing - considering their genre-history - that two established comic actors such as Helms and Wilson share absolutely no chemistry on-screen. Their characters have been written to be diametrically opposite at the beginning of the film, but there's little-to-no closure of the gap as it wears on. The road trip formula provides the pace and changing scenery required to drive (no pun intended) a movie of this type forward, but it lacks the sincerity to be either moving or funny, both of which it's clearly aiming for.

The whole thing is just so slack, as if the string of setpieces have been penned by a different writers who have never met, or been given character outlines*¹. The twists in each strand are so telegraphed that the film may as well include a synopsis in the opening titles, and the gags use lowest common denominator humour (to be expected), but delivered by a cast who are at least 25 years too old to be doing so with any level of confidence. While (despite the best efforts of writer Justin Malen) the film never quite crosses the line into hateful territory, it's oddly bereft of atmosphere, zest or flow. Like a dress-rehearsal for blocking and lighting purposes, but where the cast assume that the cameras aren't rolling.

Naturally, all of this builds to a sentimental crescendo and closing moral-message which the film has not earned in any way whatsoever. It's by no means the most ill-judged movie I've watched in recent memory, but Father Figures fundamentally fails in its remit as a comedy. Although what can we really expect from a screenplay which uses special needs, incest and colon cancer as throwaway punchlines?

To be fair, one patron found the movie consistently and vociferously funny. Then they packed up their vast collection of snacks and left fifteen minutes before the end, not to return.

Even the fans of Father Figures fucking hate Father Figures...

Imagine a car crash involving a gender-flipped Mamma Mia! and Identity Thief, except worse than that sounds.



No.



Stream in haste; repent at leisure.



It's not.



Well I'd be delighted to hear your opinions about the film, put it that way.



There isn't.



Level 2: Well this film's got that Ving Rhames in it, and he was in that Pulp Fiction alongside Sam 'Mace Windu' Jackson, Bronagh 'Maoi Madakor' Gallagher and Phil 'Rebels Bail Organa' LaMarr.





*¹ Most telling dialogue exchange: "Hey, at least buy me dinner first, next time!" quips Peter's patient at his proctology clinic. "That's really funny, I've never heard that one before" he deadpans back. But the jaded medical professional does this 30 seconds after saying "Well, the good news is I've found your car keys in here!", which one assumes he uses at least six times a day, pretty much negating any criticism of clichéd responses. It's this sort of glaringly inconsistent characterisation which further embarrasses a cast who appear to plotting how to get the film removed from the IMDB while it's still being made... ^{[ BACK ]}


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Cert: 12A / 131 mins / Dir. Christopher McQuarrie / Trailer



It's an odd thing, flipping back to the review of the previous M:I movie and realising that I evidently enjoyed it far more than my memory suggests. It was this perceived lukewarm reaction which had led to me being resolutely not-fussed about its successor.

When the Impossible Mission Force is simultaneously shut down by the CIA and compromised by a shadowy collective known as The Syndicate, Ethan Hunt has to regroup his trusted friends to try and discover the truth - if the truth can even be said to exist. Boundaries will be broken, bonds will be tested, cars will be exploded and The Girl One™ will go diving in her vest and pants; yes, it can only be Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation*¹!

First things first: the film is a lot of fun. Utterly preposterous fun, but you know that's intentional and it's better for not taking itself too seriously, no matter how many frowns the characters pull. Tom Cruise is on great form playing Tom Cruise™, and is ably assisted by Jeremy Renner, Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg*² doing likewise (playing themselves, not playing Tom Cruise. That would be weird). Rebecca Ferguson gets a relatively good spin of the wheel (for a film of this genre) as a double/triple agent, and Sean Harris is fantastic as ever but seems to have based his bad-guy persona almost entirely on Mr Lovebucket from Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door.

The film's editing (particularly in the action sequences) is marvellous, and director Christopher McQuarrie gets the cast to work together well. It also feels like Rogue Nation has the most coherent story in the series since John Woo's second installment; quite happy to be a self-contained espionage-thriller that hints obliquely at real-world politics, but is really just a delivery-method for bike chases and hanging off a plane. The film jets around the globe for its set-pieces spending, once again, a significant amount of time in London (although the plot dictates that, to be fair). Oh, and Piccadilly/Soho is never that quiet. Not ever.

Every bit as enjoyable as it is disposable, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation knows what it needs to deliver and has no difficulty in achieving it.
I've stepped in deeper puddles, but that's not the point here ;)

Oh, and I know that people variously refer to USB storage devices as 'memory sticks', 'thumb drives' and 'flash drives', but no-one calls them "disks" apart from old fogeys who don't know how their computers work.

Is that you, Ethan Hunt? Is it? Phoning your children on a Sunday afternoon because you went to 'clear out your cookies' and accidentally uninstalled Windows?

If you like 'em big and loud, it is.



It'll be one to buy, but once it's dropped in price a little.



With the best will in the world, there's really nothing new here on the performance-front.



It does.



I won't.



There isn't.



The film stars Simon 'Dengar in The Clone Wars' Pegg.







*¹ Oh, and fair play Paramount. You've made a fifth Mission: Impossible movie whose plot involves the British Secret Service, yet completely resisted the temptation to name the film 'MI:5 - Rogue Nation'. Well done on your restraint, I suppose?

*² Although as a later-addition to the franchise's ever-expanding cast, whose primary role is to 'bring the humour and bumbling' in a voice different to everyone else's, it's ironic that Simon Pegg is essentially the Jar Jar Binks of the Mission: Impossible movies. Delightful, but ironic. I still like him as a comedic-actor, but I feel that's worth pointing out.


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction
Cert: 18 / 148 mins / Dir. Quentin Tarantino




I'm not sure what's more terrifying in 2014. The fact that Ghostbusters is thirty this year, or that when I saw Pulp Fiction, Ghostbusters was only ten. Damn, I'm old.

Despite the fine works which came before and after the 1994 classic, Pulp Fiction will doubtlessly be the film for which Quentin Tarantino is ultimately remembered; the zenith of his writing and directing career. With its non-linear timeline and a string of interweaving narratives which, in isolation, appear to be about 'not that much', it should be the least accessible of QT's works and yet the opposite has proved true. As much about the discipline of film-making as that of storytelling, Pulp Fiction has become a timeless classic (with the possible exception of some high-waisted jeans and a mobile phone with a pull-out aerial).

The script is dripping with sass and minutiae, in a way which even QT himself hasn't quite been able to replicate since, and that's not to mention the slew of über-hip gangster movies its international success inspired for years to follow. With very few exceptions, everyone in the cast acts their trousers off here, and despite belonging firmly to Sam Jackson, PF is a real team effort.

It's not often I get on my high-horse, but Pulp Fiction is a modern masterpiece.
If you haven't seen it, investigate at your earliest opportunity; if you don't like it, come back here. We'll talk.

Oh, and you know what's in the case, right..?





Well, that trailer's slightly more kitsch than the film itself, but yes.



Yep.



Yep.



If you get the chance to see Pulp Fiction at the flicks, do it; that's what it was made for.



I will a bit, yeah.



Undoubtedly.



No, but there's a boot-shot.

I'd never noticed before how much damage Vincent does to his car when he crashes it outside Lance's house (and, indeed, the damage to Lance's house). How the hell does he drive that back to the Wallace residence?

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.